“You want to know if I’m a sadist.” It was a query he didn’t mind examining. “I suppose the label fits. Delivering pain is an expression of art. It’s inspiring, inherently satisfying, but only when the hurt has meaning, when it serves a purpose beyond cruelty.”
She slowly drew her head back, shrinking away from him. It was a sane reaction. Sitting within arm’s reach of the man who would end her life, she was probably crawling out of her skin to run far, far away.
He’d told her she had no opinions here, but that was bullshit. He couldn’t control the thoughts in her head, and after talking with her, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. She was a good listener and spoke her mind, even if he didn’t like what she had to say.
It was refreshing.
Her stare lasered onto his, narrowing, analyzing, before traveling down his arm to linger on his scars. “Your cuts are self-inflicted.”
“Hm.” He didn’t move his eyes from her face.
“The lines on your left arm are straighter, cleaner. Because you’re right-handed.”
Impressive.
She glanced at his head wounds and returned to his arms. “When you asked how bad your injury looked, I thought you were concerned about infection or something. But that’s not it at all. You regard scars the way a painter beholds a painting.”
He leaned forward, hanging on her words.
“Delivering pain is an expression of art. That’s what you said.” Her nose twitched. “I assume that means you prefer to be the giver of scars, not the receiver. But you gave and received those.” She nodded at his arms. “I don’t know what to make of that. Do you?”
He could explain it, but he chose not to.
At his silence, she drifted closer, inspecting his welted skin with those huge blue eyes. “The designs are incredibly detailed. I can make out a few of the abstract shapes, like the sunset and mountain range. Some of the symbols are animals, but the other marks… They’re esoteric.” She looked up and met his gaze. “Every cut means something to you.”
“Yes.” He felt himself warming to her, wanting to give her more than a night to live.
“The image you put on Tate’s back…” Her neck stiffened. “I couldn’t see it clearly. What is it?”
He described the illustration of the double gate hanging between pillars and the woman floating through the opening. “Lucia was there when I carved it into his back. When she realizes it’s a picture of the location where he’s being held, she’ll find him.”
Kate’s jaw fell open, her glare livid. “Why won’t you just let him go? That’s a whole lot easier than cutting a map into his body.” She speared a hand through her hair and pulled at the strands. “What you’re doing to them… It’s insanity.”
“Love is insanity.”
She blinked. Blinked again. “Okay?”
“Tate and Lucia were an experiment. I wanted to learn the limits of how far they would go for each other. As it turns out, the thing between them is unstoppable. He’s alone in a shack under the assumption she’s dead, and his only request is a tattoo of her on his arm. She hasn’t seen her sister in eleven years, but instead of going home, she’s scouring the country day and night. I’m certain she won’t give up until she finds him. It’s fascinating to watch.”
“You’re playing God.”
“I’m helping them.”
“Helping? Jesus Christ,” she muttered under her breath. “You’re interfering in destiny. Manipulating it.”
“Destiny is a power far bigger than my mortal reach. I’m simply providing obstacles for them to overcome, to make them stronger.”
“Sounds like a veiled excuse to deliver pain.” Emotion leaked into her voice, raising it a few octaves. “Does their agony inspire you? Do you get hard thinking about it?”
“Stop being so goddamn narrow-minded.” His pulse quickened, firing through his veins. “Adversity builds character.”
“And feeds the sadist.”
“Careful, Kate.” He hardened his eyes, gripped by an irrational need to make her understand. “If you love someone and they don’t reciprocate, what happens? You love them harder, deeper, more obsessively. Roadblocks don’t diminish desire. They intensify it. Obstacles heighten the obsession.”
“Fine.” She blew out a breath, sagging in defeat. “I get what you’re saying. Love is insanity. No one can control it.”
“Not even me.” He felt the glimmer in her eyes, the lingering heat and thrill from arguing.
“Just because I gave the devil his due on one point doesn’t mean I agree with your demented methods.”
“I don’t give a fuck whether you agree or not.”
With a harrumph, she tipped her pretty head, studying him. “You’re not…quite what you seem.”
“Explain.”
“Well, you seem to be a romantic, for one. I didn’t see that coming. Wait.” She straightened, staring at him with a startled expression. “Is that what happened to you? You had your own love story and—?”
“Do you actually believe a woman could love a man like me?”